Tommorow
by Sheila51
Summary: Stephen Franklin is stuck on earth during the Drakh Plague trying to find a cure and stumbling onto friendship along the way. R


A/N: Revised version! Still pretty lame but I hope you will review!

Eighteen months after the Drakh Plague was released into earth's atmosphere.

Stephen Franklin ran his hands over his face and through his short hair. Beside him a young medical student was studying something with a tense excitedness. He glanced away from his screen; it was starting to waver anyway. She raised a slender hand up to her mouth. He studied her absently. She had discovered a way to detect the virus in dogs, now she was trying to find the same in humans. As was everyone in the lab. Jayce Phillips constantly bit her lip, her red hair was always coming out and she basically was always looking worried.

He smiled slightly. He was going grey, she was developing frown lines, this was the Plague's effect on them. She sat back in the chair a piece of hair fed in the side of her mouth to replace her lip. Grinding at it she frowned fiercely and crossed her arms. Leaning forwards she typed in something. A combination of chemicals. She watched the result.

He saw the little green flash at the same time she did. He jumped to his feet and strode the meter to her and leant over her shoulder. She didn't even glance up, just stared at the screen. There it was. Permeating every part of the sample. He leaned over her shoulder even further and laughed.

"Oh well done!!" he said standing upright. There was the little sucker! She smiled up at him. Her green eyes were ringed by black hollows. "Fantastic work!" he told her as she blinked. Taking a deep breath she said.

"Then you can see it too?" she asked softly. He grinned. It was hard to believe. And she looked very doubtful. "I see it." He smiled and finally for the first time her face split into an enormous grin, she turned back to the computer. "And you know what I'm gonna do?" she shook her head, obviously not paying attention. "I'm gonna take you for a celebratory drink." He said taking off the gray medical uniform. She ducked her head and mumbled her grin slipping.

"I beg you pardon?" he asked as she continued studying her find. She took a deep breath and turned back. "I don't drink." She said softly and clearly. "Well you don't have too." He said. "But you do have to keep me company." she opened her mouth to object. "No buts just get dressed and we'll go." He told her in a no nonsense tone of voice. Reluctantly she changed. Her shirt was powder blue and a dark blue jacket went on over the top.

He stepped inside Mary's bar. It was a very up market bar, with a piano that could be played by customers or by a visiting band. They moved to the bar. He could feel her hesitation but after a moment she followed him until they reached bar. They sat down and he ordered a scotch. She asked for water. He turned to look at her. She was looking at the Piano.

"Do you play?" he asked, her head snapped back around to him and she smiled and nodded. "Yes, have since I was a small child." He nodded.

He was realizing that they'd worked closely for weeks and he didn't even know the first thing about her. Their drinks had arrived. They both sipped at them before putting them back down. "So," they both said at the same time. They laughed, She was pretty when she laughed, and very young, she motioned that he should go ahead and sipped her drink. "Jayce, I've never heard you mention your parents..." he noticed the change of expression. She turned to look at him.

"My dad was in Earthforce, he died in the Earth/Minbari war." She said with a matter of fact tone. "Sorry" he said "Don't be, I never knew him. As for my mum, she was my manager." He raised his eyebrows. She smiled. "I was a child prodigy, I could compose, play, write lyrics, and recite enormous amounts of poetry..." she shrugged. "Anything you showed me how to do, I could do." He blinked.

"I must've missed something" she smiled slightly "Can you still..." he waved a hand at the piano, she nodded while sipping at her water. He nodded slowly. "Would like to see?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well it seems I missed you doing it as a child." He said. She smiled. "I'm from Mars." She said it softly, with barely a trace of bitterness. He nodded in understanding. She stood and motioned towards the Piano, the Barman nodded. She sat and composed her self before beginning to play. Her slender fingers danced over the black and white keys with a delicate touch.  
  
"Well there's a little boy waiting

at the counter of a corner shop

He's been waiting down there,

waiting half the day

They never ever see him

from the top

He gets pushed around,

knocked to the ground

He gets to his feet and

he says  
  
What about me?

it isn't fair

I've had enough now

I want my share

Can't you see

I wanna live,

But you just take more

than you give  
  
Well there's a pretty girl serving

at the counter of the corner shop

She's been waiting back there,

waiting for her dreams

Her dreams walk in

and out they never stop

Well she's not too proud

to cry out loud

She runs to the street

and she screams  
  
What about me,

it isn't fair

I've had enough now

I want my share

Can't you see

I wanna live

But you just take more

than you give  
  
So take a step back and

see the little people

They may be young

But they're the ones

That make the big

people big  

So listen, as they whisper

What about me  
  
And now I'm standing

on the corner

all the world's gone home

Nobody's changed,

nobody's been saved

And I'm feeling cold and alone

I guess I'm lucky,

I smile a lot

But sometimes

I wish for more than

I've got  
  
What about me,

it isn't fair

I've had enough now

I want my share

Can't you see

I wanna live

But you just take more

than you give..."

He sat awestruck as the last notes faded away. She was great, a delicate voice with so much feeling behind it, and simple melodies weaving into a complex combination. She walked back amidst cheering from the bars patrons, it was rare anyone actually played the piano anymore.

She smiled, and ducked her head as she walked to her seat. She smiled in a shy way at him and he just shook his head and smiled. They relaxed into a conversation on everything from politics to war and medical codes of conduct, but not once did they touch on the virus or what she had just achieved. She told him her motto. "Live for today and not tomorrow, nor in yesterday, in dreams of sorrow."

Grinning he selected the magnification and looked at the virus. Elation had filled him last night but right now he was on the verge of taking off and going into orbit. He looked up as Jayce walked in. She was white as a sheet, the dark circles more pronounced. A hand was pressed to her head and she swayed a moment. "Jayce?" he called rising to his feet as she stumbled. She crumpled to the floor with a soft sigh. He yelled for medic's and ran to her side. Rolling her over, he checked her pulse before lifting her up into his arms and running into IsoLab 3. The nurses and other doctors quickly got everything set up around her. "Oh my God..." was all he said as he looked at the readouts. "Oh my god" he said again.

He sat beside her an hour later as his own words floated through his head. She had cancer. Lymphatic, lung, ovarian, leukaemia... She had multiple tumours everywhere. As did approximately 3000 other people around the world. She was dying very quickly. And he found himself glued there. Her lids fluttered and her eyes opened. He stood and looked down at her.

"What... what..." her whisper was barely there, the tumors on her larynx would make speaking painful. She attempted to sit up. He stood and pressed her back down.

"What happened?" he finished for her. She nodded weakly. "You've got advanced cancer." She stared up at him with incomprehension. "Through out your body." She blinked.

"Drakh..." the papery whisper was terrible, the voice from last night gone, he felt tears in his eyes. He nodded. She closed her eyes. "How... how many others," she asked softly.

He licked his lips "Thirteen hundred... so far." He added. She looked up at him.

"You mean dead." She said with a small cough. He nodded. "How long?" she asked after a moment. "Not long." He replied. She nodded. Her eyes closed and she relaxed back. He looked over at the monitors. She had only a few minutes of consciousness left. The tumours on her brain were growing at unheard of rates.

He swallowed past a sudden lump. "Jayce?" he asked leaning over her. Her eyes opened. And found his. "Do you... You know how you want... Did you want anything special?" he asked, his voice cracking. She shook her head.

"I don't care. Pity... I wish I could've..." she swallowed painfully. "...could've helped more" she smiled and looked past him. "Stars..." She whispered. Her eyes fluttered closed. "I wanted to be a star... Burning so bright... Living today, not living tomorrow..."

Franklin had attended the funeral. There hadn't been many people there. He had put her into a CryoTube afterwards. He had taken her last words literally. She would be launched into space either when they found a cure or EarthForce would pick her up and send her into the sun after everyone was dead. He looked down at the white face.

Despair came over him in a flood, why did her bother to fight on, they had no idea how to stop the virus now they'd found it. He wished for just one moment that he had never become a doctor, that this hadn't been his time, his burden.

But only just for a moment.

He couldn't give up. This young woman had started medicine because of the Plague. So many others were determined to fight it, he had to fight harder. He would live in today, explore every option and not think about tomorrow.

And so he did. Sixteen hours a day. , Researching every option that he could. It took another two years. A third of Earth's population was dead. But the rest would live. Sarah Chambers found him beside Jayce's CryoTube. She still looked as small as last time. He looked down and told her. They would survive, and it was largely due to her. There had been very few big breakthroughs and hers had caused a landslide of others, and when the Excalibur had brought back some information found on a dead moon about a people who had fought an even more complex virus they had finally neutralised the plague.

Sarah had listened, and so had Jayce. He watched from the Excalibur's bridge as they sent her into the sun. All the stress of the last four years, he smiled. She had been a better doctor than him eleven months after beginning her medical studies. John asked why he cried. Stephen touched the tears. "She inspired me not to worry, not about tomorrow, but live in today. What can I do today." He smiled. "She gave John, without any thought of surviving herself." He smiled. He had finally relaxed into a researcher rather than a desperate man searching for something, anything all because she had died.

He owed her a lot, more than a lot. "What about me, it isn't fair, I've had enough now I want my share, can't you see I wanna live, but you just take more than you give..." he whispered as her coffin turned to liquid fire. Tomorrow would always come, what mattered was today, and the difference's you could make today.

Shannon Noll's song 'What about me.' Please review this revised version!!


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